One of the forces that helped to popularize the Internet¹, and ultimately led to the development of the WWW², was the interest in and demand for electronic mail³. Today, "e-mail" is an accepted and useful means for communication between computers located in peoples' homes, businesses, and dorm rooms. In fact, public forums have even been developed so that "e-mailers" can be in touch with large groups of people all at once, and can participate in virtual⁴, on-line, group discussions through news groups⁵, discussion groups, interest groups, and the like.

Since WWW users tend to be people who are predisposed to using e-mail, it is not surprising that the lines between these communication services (Web servers, mail servers, news groups) have already blurred. Indeed, many browsers⁶ have built-in mail and news group facilities.

Use whatever e-mail service is available to you to do the following:

1. Send an e-mail message to your instructor telling her/him how much you are enjoying this course (it doesn't hurt!)
2. We have established a discussion group for AE Online. To get to the discussion group, simply follow this link. Then, do the following:



3. Read some of the postings from other AE Online users.
4. Post a message of your own to the group describing your experience to date in using AE Online.

Note that the discussion group uses WWW forms, instead of e-mail, to post your message to a central repository on the server, instead of sending the message once and having it inaccessible to future readers.